Where current routers might start to get overwhelmed by requests from a multitude of devices, Wi-Fi 6 routers are designed to more effectively keep all those devices up to date with the data they need.Įach of those devices’ speeds won’t necessarily be faster than what they can reach today on a high-quality network, but they’re more likely to maintain those top speeds even in busier environments. The story starts to change as more and more devices get added onto your network. A single Wi-Fi 6 laptop connected to a Wi-Fi 6 router may only be slightly faster than a single Wi-Fi 5 laptop connected to a Wi-Fi 5 router.ĭevices are more likely to maintain fast speeds on busy networks Unfortunately, there’s no easy answer here.Īt first, Wi-Fi 6 connections aren’t likely to be substantially faster. Together, those features should keep connections strong even as more and more devices start demanding data. It lets routers communicate with more devices at once, lets routers send data to multiple devices in the same broadcast, and lets Wi-Fi devices schedule check-ins with the router. Wi-Fi 6 introduces some new technologies to help mitigate the issues that come with putting dozens of Wi-Fi devices on a single network. Your router can only communicate with so many devices at once, so the more gadgets demanding Wi-Fi, the more the network overall is going to slow down. Those added devices take a toll on your network. Now, homes have nine Wi-Fi devices on average, and various firms have predicted we’ll hit 50 on average within several years. That’s an important goal, and it arrives at an important time: when Wi-Fi 5 came out, the average US household had about five Wi-Fi devices in it. Instead of boosting the speed for individual devices, Wi-Fi 6 is all about improving the network when a bunch of devices are connected. For Wi-Fi 6, you might see the 802.11ax name here and there, but companies largely seem to be on board with using the simplified naming scheme. You probably won’t hear the Wi-Fi 5 name used very much since it’s been around for five years and just got that name in October 2018. This new generation, previously called 802.11ax, is now Wi-Fi 6. So the current generation of Wi-Fi, 802.11ac, turned into Wi-Fi 5. To fix that, the Wi-Fi Alliance decided to rename Wi-Fi generations with simple version numbers. Until recently, Wi-Fi generations were referred to by an arcane naming scheme that required you to understand whether 802.11n was faster than 802.11ac, and whether 802.11ac was faster than 802.11af, and whether any of those names were just made up nonsense. That means more potential speed for each device. It can be split up across a whole network of devices. That 9.6 Gbps doesn’t have to go to a single computer.
The typical download speed in the US is just 72 Mbps, or less than 1 percent of the theoretical maximum speed.īut the fact that Wi-Fi 6 has a much higher theoretical speed limit than its predecessor is still important. And even if you could reach those speeds, it’s not clear that you’d need them. The real answer: both of those speeds are theoretical maximums that you’re unlikely to ever reach in real-world Wi-Fi use. The short but incomplete answer: 9.6 Gbps. It’ll still do the same basic thing - connect you to the internet - just with a bunch of additional technologies to make that happen more efficiently, speeding up connections in the process. Here’s what you should expect once it arrives. Wi-Fi 6 is just starting to arrive this year, and there’s a good chance it’ll be inside your next phone or laptop.
This is less of a one-time speed increase and more of a future-facing upgrade designed to make sure our speeds don’t grind to a halt a few years down the road. Its impact will be more nuanced, and we’re likely to see its benefits more and more over time. That’s great news: faster internet is constantly in demand, especially as we consume more bandwidth-demanding apps, games, and videos with our laptops and phones.īut the next generation of Wi-Fi, known as Wi-Fi 6, isn’t just a simple speed boost.